17th Century Political Cartesianism and Its Opponents, or Imaging the State from Point Fixe

Julia Ivanova () and Pavel Sokolov ()
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Julia Ivanova: National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.
Pavel Sokolov: National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: This article examines the relation of two models of civil science in the early modern political literature: the rhetorical science of contingency (rhetorica primaria), and mathesis politica, associated with Descartes by some early Enlightenment authors. The authors analyze the reception of the rhetorical aspect of Hobbes’s civil science with a special focus on Vico’s criticism of Hobbes’s constructivist state model, showing how Vico counters the Hobbesian ‘protosociological’ style of theorizing with his own historical way of reflecting on the social and ‘open’ structure of political action.

Keywords: Giambattista Vico; Thomas Hobbes; pragmatism; political rhetoric; Cartesianism; political semiology; ragione di Stato; mathesis politica (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Z (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2012
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Published in WP BRP Series: Humanities / HUM, November 2012, pages 1-23

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:wpaper:08hum2012

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